


Haywire

by beauyeol



Category: Infinite (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - TiMER Fusion, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-24
Updated: 2017-08-24
Packaged: 2018-12-19 08:05:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11893509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beauyeol/pseuds/beauyeol
Summary: For some people, the timers just didn't work. Some people had impossible amounts of time. Some would count down to zero a little too fast. Other people, like Nam Woohyun, had timers that had just gone haywire.





	Haywire

**Author's Note:**

> crossposting from tumblr just because =)

For some people, the timers just didn't work. Some people had impossible amounts of time, like 98 years left when they're fifty years old. Some would count down to zero a little too fast, like time decided to work differently for this one individual, and honestly, it screwed some people up, made conspiracy nuts out of once-sane people. Other people, like Nam Woohyun, had timers that had just gone haywire.

Yesterday, his timer read 00:42:22:43:09 when he woke up. This morning, it said 03:02:08:59:59. And yeah, Woohyun got it, they all did: things changed. As much as they were led to believe that these timers were "fate itself" leading them to their soul mates, most of them knew better. It was like, who would know? Maybe he headed into Walmart to buy pens with only a minute and a half left, but then he forgot his cell phone in the car, so he went back out, and his watch now said he had ten minutes left. Yeah, that's perfectly normal and happened to pretty much everybody.

But it's not just an occasional shift in time for people with timers like Woohyun's. It was not so easily explained as "oh, choices, choices." He would be sitting in macroeconomics, waiting to get out of a lecture, and his timer would tantalizingly inform him that he only had fifteen minutes left until he met his soul mate. Then, when he looked down again two minutes later, it would tell him that he still had twenty-three years left to wait. Sometimes it did give him impossible times, like 99:99:99:99:99, or more subtly, stuff like 00:00:00:00:80. Eighty seconds? Shouldn't that be one minute and twenty seconds? Not according to his dumb-ass timer.

It made things pretty frustrating. If he'd ever clicked with anyone in his life, he would be afraid that he had already met his soul mate and passed them up. But for better or for worse, Woohyun had never met anyone who he felt was even relatively close to being his soul mate. That's not to say he was interested in people – Woohyun definitely was. He'd dated people before, had sex with people before, hell, he was even married in Vegas to one of his best friends a few years ago. But everyone he had ever met, ever considered loving romantically, just.. didn't feel right. Like, as if to replace his defunct timer, his own intuition had become a beacon to tell him who his soul mate was. And it sure as hell wasn't any of the people he'd met so far.

It only added on to the list of things Woohyun needed to worry about, the kinds of things everyone worried about. Though, in his mind, most of the stuff people worried about shouldn't really matter. Like, didn't worry – they'd like what you looked like. They wouldn't care if you're trans, or if you're allergic to cats, or if you're a pescetarian. If they're supposed to love you unconditionally for the rest of your life, then they wouldn't care about stuff like that. Just.. be lucky you knew who they even were.

It was not like they were stigmatized, or anything, those of them with dysfunctional timers. They're just kinda.. pitied, he guessed. Which might be as bad.

Ever since his father died, his mother made it her personal quest to find his soul mate for him. His sister had joined in, too, to Woohyun's great despair. Both of them had had wonderful Meetings.

His mother and father met at the beach at sunset in Hawaii, on the adventure of their lives. Both of them had opted to cover up their timers, and they'd found each other anyway, halfway around the world.

His sister, Seohyun, met her husband Taegoon while on a school-funded trip to South Korea to run a literacy program, when she was teaching his younger sister. Neither of them had ever imagined they'd meet their soulmates in such a touching way, and now they had twins on the way.

"You'll meet someone, Woohyun-ah," they told him constantly. "You just have to know."

Sure. And part of Woohyun thought that maybe his intuition, having helped him in the past, would truly know when he'd met "the one." But what if he just met "a one"? Well, that would be okay, too. He's only twenty-two, still a few months away from graduating. There's no need for him to be worrying about the rest of his life just yet. But still.. there were days when he feared a life alone. Romantically, anyway.

He worked at a bakery. He figured it was an easy enough way to meet people, being a cashier. The boss paid well, and no one stared at him with eyes of pity when they remembered his haywire timer. In fact, the boss' son, Sunggyu, joked with him about it on a regular basis, making it easier to deal with on the hard days.

"Hey, Woohyun-ah," he would greet some mornings. "How much longer to go today? A couple of centuries isn't too long!" Or, "Hey, Woohyunnie, I heard NASA's working on a time travel experiment, you should volunteer!"

Woohyun had only been working at Sunggyu's dad's bakery for about two years, but the young man was definitely his best friend. He was the only one who Woohyun felt understood him. Sunggyu had found his own soul mate years ago. They'd had the privilege of meeting young, and growing up together. They'd gotten married the second they both turned eighteen, and now she was co-managing the bakery with him, a part of the family from the start. But Sunggyu's story didn't make him feel incomplete, or jealous. It was just the way his life had gone, and Woohyun was happy for him without being envious.

This morning, Sunggyu was back to the time travel jokes. "Woohyun-ah, you know, I was thinking. Maybe you were meant to be with Minjoong. I mean, her marriage wasn't that great, you know, and you're both Aquarius, so I feel like that could've worked out."

Woohyun grinned in spite of himself as he was putting his apron on. "You've got a point. As soon as NASA gets back to me about that experiment, I'll make sure to suggest revolutionary France as a first stop."

"Good man," Sunggyu said, smiling back.

"They're at it again, though," he warned, "and I don't think they're looking at Viennese aristocracy. More like Seohyun's pool of friends who aren't moms yet."

"Yah, call them off!" Sunggyu said lightheartedly, passing him a tray of éclairs to put out in the glass container at the counter. "It's your life, and your magical intuition! Seohyun and your mom aren't just gonna whip someone out from the baby shower who just happens to be your mate."

He laughed. "I know, I know, but they're trying, and I guess it's all in love? They're being very considerate about it, anyway. They've stopped trying to hook me up with Yoorin."

Yoorin was a mutual friend of Sunggyu's and his, an ex-employee who still hung around on her lunch breaks at her new job. She's gorgeous, sure, and super smart – one day, she'd totally be working for the CDC if she wanted – but there was no spark.

"Oh, thank god," Sunggyu groaned, helping Woohyun with the éclairs. "Those passive-aggressive Facebook posts were getting a little sad." When they finished with the tray, Sunggyu pulled Woohyun's left wrist to his face, pulling back the glove from his hand ever so slightly. "Huh. Normal time for right now! Twenty minutes and four seconds."

"Really?" Woohyun looked down and saw that Sunggyu was right. It's down to nineteen minutes now. Then, while he was watching, the numbers seemed to falter for a millisecond, and they changed. From 00:00:00:19:57 to 17:24:04:01:00.

"So much for that," said Sunggyu, watching.

"Whatever," he conceded, shrugging. The odds were as good at seventeen years as twenty minutes that he'd meet them.

"Hey, Woohyun," said Sunggyu's dad, Mr. Kim, coming from the kitchen. "I really hate to ask you this, but Byul just called in sick, and I need a delivery made in fifteen minutes. Think you could do it? I'd pay you her wage for the day."

Hm. Delivery workers, though there were fewer of them, and working fewer hours, still made a higher hourly wage than the cashiers did.

"Sure, Mr. Kim," Woohyun agreed. He had got a car and they’re paying for gas anyway. This was a change from the norm, something Woohyun tried to grab when he could. It's only by taking chances that anything of value happened anyway.

"Thanks, son, you're a lifesaver," Mr. Kim said gratefully. "Hyuna, can you get me those boxes? We're taking them to Woohyun's car."

"Sure thing!" Sunggyu's wife called from the back.

"You're leaving me behind the counter? Alone?" Sunggyu whined.

"You've got your wife and half your family like twenty feet away from you," Woohyun countered, taking the apron off to hang up behind the counter. Sunggyu still pouted, and he punched him lightly in the arm. "I'll be back in like a half hour, probably."

He went to the back and took the four boxes of doughnuts from Mr. Kim. "I've got it, sir," he told him. He just nodded and went back to his baking. Woohyun caught up with Hyuna outside, who's looking around for his car.

"The green one," He told her, gesturing with his head to an old green Nissan. He began walking her over, fishing for his car keys from his jeans pocket.

"I'll get the trunk," she said, hurrying in front of Woohyun. She did so, and they begun carefully stacking the boxes of pastries into place so that none of them would slip or slide. There were only two boxes left to stack when there's a sharp, painful feeling in his left wrist, and he dropped a box.

"Ow! Shit!" He exclaimed.

"Oh my god," Hyuna said, but she was able to catch the box. She opened it up carefully and checked, and it seemed that all of the things inside must be fine, because she closed it and looked at him. "Are you okay? What happened?"

"I—I don't know." Woohyun looked down at his wrist where the timer was embedded, now reading 00:00:47:00:12. Another impossible time, at 47 hours. "It was like it–like it shocked me or something."

Hyuna set the box down into the trunk, perhaps a little less carefully than the others and took his wrist into her hand to look at. "Hm. It's not red or anything. No chance it’s infected?"

"Nah, I've had it since forever, and I haven't hurt it lately."

She let go of his wrist and gave him a worried look. "That's totally not normal, Woohyun. You might want to, you know.. get that checked out."

Woohyun knew what she meant. She didn't mean just had a doctor look at it. She meant had it removed. He had always known it was an option, always considered, but.. it felt wrong. Even if the timer had completely let him down, it was assigned to him as a child, and everyone was only assigned one. It might be dysfunctional, but it was still a part of him.

"I know what you're thinking," Hyuna said softly. "But really, Woohyun, it's–maybe it's for the best, you know?" She gave him a sympathetic smile, then fished a scrap of paper from her flower-caked apron. "Here's the address," she said, passing it to him.

"Thanks," he heard himself say.

"And look, if it happens again, just–let someone know, okay?" she nearly begged.

"I will," Woohyun told her, but he was uncertain how much he meant it.

Hyuna gave him a wave and headed back to the bakery, where he's ninety-nine percent sure she's going to go blabbing to Sunggyu and half the shop. Woohyun rolled his eyes and hopped in his car.

The address wasn't too far away; it's an easy drive with little traffic. He reached an apartment building several stories tall with balconies bearing plants and bicycles, and he reread the address just to make sure. He was at the right place, and he started looking for apartment numbers: 301, 302, 303, 304…305. Cool. He put the car in park and poppex the trunk, and it happened again.

Woohyun swore and held his wrist, feeling as though something were being jabbed into it. He bit lip and blinked back tears, taking a breath to compose himself. Jesus. Nothing seemed to be wrong with the stupid timer besides its usual issues. Now, it read 09:09:30:07:38. The number was in no way out of the ordinary. He'd seen some weird numbers on this thing, and this didn't even come close. What was with this pain? It hadn't caused him any pain since the day he got it, and even then it didn't feel like this.

What if it's.. trying to tell him? The numerical system wasn't working, but maybe there was something else in the timer, something trying to let him know.

No, that was stupid. Some timers that worked perfectly beeped, like radar, when they were close to their soul mate for their Meeting. Nobody's stabbed them. Maybe Hyuna was right. Woohyun's timer was a part of him, as much of his tonsils or his appendix. But those things could be removed, too. Maybe it was time.

“If this is gonna keep up, you're gone. Got it?” He muttered to the timer, as if it would respond.

Woohyun shook his head and hopped out of the car, going around to the trunk. There were ten boxes in total, and he knew he could get them all, as long as his wrist didn't freak out: he'd carried more before.

He stacked them one on top of the other, and he was halfway across the parking lot to apartment 305 when it happened. Dammit, he thought, before his wrist buckled on him from the pain. He tried to shift the boxes in his left arm to his right, but he had no luck. Two of the boxes fell, but just before they hit the ground they were caught by an arm.

"Whoa! You okay there, buddy?" A guy straightened up beside him, holding the boxes.

"Uhh.. yeah, I'm fine, it's no big deal. Thanks for.." Woohyun turned to take the boxes from the man and he felt his jaw go slack. He knew he should be embarrassed, but he was not. This guy was.. _wow_.

 _He's so tall_ , Woohyun thought, with dark curly hair and eyes like freshly brewed coffee. He's got a brilliant white gummy smile, though he smiled only softly, and he’s got a dimple in one cheek, but not the other. He's dressed in a simple button-up shirt that's a little too long in the wrist and slacks, like he's trying to look nice, but not too nice, and aside from the two boxes of pastries in his hand, he was holding his own car keys and a piece of paper that looked like a printed map.

"Uh—no problem," Woohyun was smiling a little wider. _Oh God, he thinks I’m a freak._ "I can, uh, I can take them," he added, shifting the boxes so as to free some space.

"Are you sure? I can help you take them wherever you’re going," the tall man offered, coming closer to him as if to take the other boxes and Woohyun just noticed his heartbeat becoming quicker.

"Oh, you–you totally don't have to. It's apartment 305. But I mean. I can do it, I've done this plenty of times. So many. Lots more boxes than this, too, like–like fifteen boxes. Delivering things is like, my life," And because he was nervous all of a sudden, he started to babble.

He seemed amused. "Oh, my bad. I wouldn't want to steal your thunder, then."

Now Woohyun thought he felt his face becoming red. _What is happening?_

The man put the boxes on top of the others, and Woohyun was about to thank him when yet again, a sharp pain ripped through his wrist, and this time it was so painful, he fell to his knees, taking the boxes with him. None of them fell, but Woohyun was hardly thinking about it as he set them down on the ground and folded his wrist to his chest, clutching it to him in a slight panic. He was not sure he'd ever been in this much pain in his life. He had had two broken bones and the mother of all migraines, and nothing had ever hurt this badly.

"Oh my god, are you okay?" The tall man asked, getting down next to Woohyun. He put a hand on Woohyun's back, and his heart legitimately skipped a beat. Just took a little break while he was freaking out. Thanks, heart, good job. Maybe his body was just slowly shutting down and it's starting with his timer and his wrist.

"It's just–wrist," Woohyun hissed out. The pain was receding, but it was still horrible.

Without waiting to ask anything further, the stranger took his wrist and examined it. Woohyun raised his face to watch the man's expression, and he looked surprised. "Haywire," he mumbled. "Huh. How long has this been happening?"

"It's–it's happened three times since this morning," Woohyun admitted, able to sit up now, though he was feeling nauseous.

"Well, honestly, I don't know much about these things, but I'm assuming that's not good. Stay here for just a minute."

He looked up to follow him, but just as suddenly as it had been happening, the stabbing pain came back full force. He bit his lip so he wouldn't make any noise, but he was finding it hard to think through the pain, let alone control his reactions to it. It lasted for about a full minute, and when he could open his eyes again, the tall man was back, though Woohyun had barely noticed he'd left. The man had his hand on his back again, which didn't really make it any easier to think, because his hand was large, and warm, and oh, shit, he was stroking Woohyun's back. He was asking him something.

"What?" Woohyun asked, looking up at him.

"I called an ambulance, okay? And I dropped off those boxes at 305."

"Oh—you didn't have to—"

"Man, you can't even stand," he retorted.

"I just mean—you've probably got better things to do," Woohyun said. "Looks like you were going somewhere."

"Oh." The stranger looked down at his shirt as though he forgot what he was wearing. His map was folded up in the pocket. "Nah, nothing important, just meeting my soul mate," he joked.

Why was it Woohyun's heart felt like he did a kind of plummet? Oh.

"I'm sorry, you should go," he said. "That's pretty impor–oh." Woohyun  collapsed over his arm again as it pained him, and this time he did feel like he really couldn't breathe. His mind was overloaded. The only things that existed were this pain and this distractingly hot tall stranger who's saying something to him that he couldn't hear, his arms around Woohyun in a way he would like to take the time to enjoy but couldn't, and when did he start liking guys anyway? This was new. Seohyun and his mother would get a kick out of this.

"Hey," Woohyun blearily heard him say. "Hey, man, the ambulance is here, I'm gonna have to get you up, okay?"

Woohyun said nothing, but he tried to force his body to cooperate as he lifted him upwards. He could feel his own feet beneath him, and he attempted to put his weight on them, but almost as soon as he did, he felt himself becoming extremely dizzy. His knees buckled from under him and he felt himself falling back down to the pavement, his mind slowly fading to black.

***

The first time Woohyun woke up was only a minute or so later.

"Sir? Sir, can you hear me?"

"Yes," he whispered, unsure who the yes was directed to.

"Okay, sir, that's good, you're in an ambulance, but everything's going to be okay, okay? We're going to get you to the hospital and fix this." It's a female voice, soothing and determined, and Woohyun felt safe, if not still blurry.

"Where's..?" he wondered aloud, then stopped himself. He lifted his head as high as he could to look out the back window, and he noticed his savior standing by his car. He'd got his keys and his map in his hand, and he's looking at the ambulance with an unreadable expression.

The ambulance driver said something and Woohyun felt the vehicle lurch in movement. He was still watching the guy, and he watched as he opened his car door, then rolled the sleeve of his left wrist down, probably checking how much time he had before he was going to meet his soulmate. Whoever they were, they’re lucky. What kind of man would take time to save some random dude who passed out in his parking lot and deliver his doughnuts for him when he had a soul mate to go meet? A great one, that's what kind.

As Woohyun was watching, his eyes widened. He looked panicked. He whipped his neck around to look at the ambulance, then slammed the car door and started running after it.

"Zero!" he mouthed, as he ran. "Zero!"

Huh. Nice for him. Woohyun was aware only of the ambulance pulling farther away, faster, and then his mind went dark again.  
  
The second time he woke up, they were taking him inside to the ICU.

"What is it?" asked a doctor in scrubs, his paramedics rolling his gurney along.

"Not sure," said the female paramedic. "Guy who found him says his wrist was just killing him. The one with the timer."

"Really?" They wheeled the gurney to a secluded area of the large room and stopped it.

"Yeah. It was so bad, he passed out."

The doctor, an older man with a patient expression, looked at Woohyun's wrist, inspecting it tenderly.

"When did you have this put in, young man?" he asked.

Woohyun shook his head. "I was like five," he told him blearily, unconsciousness still seeming like a nice option, but the pain, thankfully, gone.

"Has it only recently gone defunct?"

"Nope."

"Hm." The doctor looked for a minute more, then gingerly dropped his wrist. "Alright, get him hooked up, I want his vitals. We may have to remove that thing."

The paramedics rolled him over to a station, moved him to the temporary bed, and began taking his vital signs, and Woohyun was starting to settle down a little, his mind clearing.

So it was coming off. Well, oh well. Better to have it off than ever be in that much pain again.

"Are you feeling better?" asked a nurse who had joined his care team.

"Yeah, it's.. better," Woohyun told him.

"Good, that's—"

A loud clang rang out and a door slammed shut, and suddenly, Woohyun was in pain again, but not nearly so bad as the last few times. This was hardly a twang of pain, but he grimaced anyway.

"Ow."

"Hey–there–oh, God.." he heard a familiar voice say, panting.

"Sir, you'll have to wait outside," said another voice, patient but authoritative.

"No, I'm–I'm his—"

"I.. see," the other voice said. "Over here, then."

The nurse had just finished hooking Woohyun up to the proper machines when the hot tall man from the parking lot came up to the end of the bed, looking exhausted, his chest heaving.

Woohyun just raised his eyebrows.

The nurse beside him looked concerned. He looked down to him. "Do you know this man?" he asked.

"Uh. Kind of," he replied. "He's the one who called the ambulance."

The nurse still looked concerned, but he said, "Okay.. uh, I'll just leave you for a minute then. I'll get the doctor."

Finally, his hero caught his breath and stuck his wrist out at him, timer exposed. 00:00:00:00:00.

Woohyun looked at him curiously. "Then.. don't you have somewhere to be?"

"Nope," the man responded. "I'm pretty sure I only had like two minutes left when I ran out of my apartment–I was running late. Then I ran into you, and.. I'm pretty sure it ran out when you turned around."

Now Woohyun could definitely feel his face heating up. His wrist twinged a little, but it was hardly noticeable. "You mean..?"

The tall man gave him a shy smile that Woohyun couldn't help but fall a little bit in love with, and he came closer to him, around the side of the bed. "Hi. I'm Lee Sungyeol, and I'm pretty sure I'm your soulmate."

"I'm Woohyun. Nam Woohyun,” he told him, "and that would mean that you're the reason I’m in the hospital."

Sungyeol laughed, and Woohyun swore he had never heard a nicer sound. He reached out as if to shake his hand, then he just held it in his. All this time, no one had ever felt anything close to right, but this.. felt perfect.

"I thought I was straight," Woohyun admitted sheepishly.

Sungyeol just laughed again. "I'm sure we've all been there. Glad you're over it.”

"Woohyun-ah? Oh, my god, Woohyun, honey!" Woohyun's mother's shrill voice filled the hall. Great.

"Hi, Mom," he greeted, very aware of how close Sungyeol was to him.

"Woohyun? Oh, thank god, are you okay?" Seohyun joined her, holding onto her largely pregnant belly. She quickly took the chair on the other side of his bed and reached forward to stroke his hair, seemingly oblivious to Sungyeol.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," Woohyun assured the both of them. He looked up at Sungyeol nervously, who looked like he'd never been more confused and on-edge in his life. He squeezed his hand tentatively and looked back to his family. "Uh, guys, this is Sungyeol. My soul mate."

Both of his family members looked up at him, shocked. Then they looked back at Woohyun.

"I told you you were wasting your time with Yoorin."

Sungyeol, bless him, not even knowing the extent of what he meant, squeezed his hand back and laughed. When he looked up at him and met his eyes again, Woohyun felt more peaceful than he'd ever felt in his life. Even if it took some desperate and painful measures, his timer had still – kind of – worked. Now it was just his heart that felt a little haywire.


End file.
